


i couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Also therapy, Angst, Bisexual Sokka, Eventual Smut, Five Years Later, Homophobic Fire Nation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon, Self-Hatred, Yearning, Zuko needs a hug and a nap, gay Zuko, seriously so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Zuko hasn't worried about that part of himself for so long; it was buried by the exile, buried by the war, buried by duty and responsibility.Then, Sokka returns to the Fire Nation after time away at sea, and Zuko can't ignore that part of himself anymore. The boy he once fought at the South Pole has become a man, and Zuko's feelings can't be hidden much longer -- no matter what the laws of his country say.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 1069





	i couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO  
> This started off as a drabble about Zuko protecting Mai when Azula discovered she was in a relationship with Ty Lee, but then it became ..... a fairly lengthy one shot where Zuko struggles with the homophobia he grew up with. 
> 
> The idea for this comes from the canon information from Aang re: Sozin's horrific law that made homoromantic/homosexual relationships illegal.
> 
> Please heed the **warnings**
> 
>  **Main Trigger Warnings**  
>  Homophobia (internal/external)  
> Blood (brief, training accident)
> 
> **Detailed Warnings, if needed**
> 
> Pervasive internalized homophobia -- Zuko refers to his "shame" frequently and tries to reject his romantic/sexual feelings for Sokka as a result  
> Homophobic/violent laws: Zuko refers (nongraphically) to executions/banishments of gay people in the Fire Nation as he was growing up  
> Zuko struggles with self-hatred as a result of his internalized homophobia  
> Zuko says some really unkind things to Sokka while talking about his own self-hatred (unintentional, quickly cleared up)  
> References to child abuse (Ozai)

Zuko has wanted many things in his life.

First, his father’s love; then, his mother’s return. His father’s love again, his honor, his sister’s respect, his crown, his people’s forgiveness -- his father’s love through the core of it all. All tiles that fell and clacked against the gameboard of his life and his destiny, building wicked patterns that tangled him up in fury and hope and hate all too often.

Zuko’s wants were to prone to change, of course: it became his uncle’s absolution that burned in his gut, it became Katara’s forgiveness that pushed him, it became Aang’s safety that compelled him. 

Zuko has wanted, and he has taken, and he has begged. He has lost and won and earned a thousand times over, but it’s when he turns twenty-two that he discovers want all over again.

It swallows him whole; it sits like a ball at the back of his throat when he holds himself back from speaking and burns at his fingertips when he holds himself back from taking. The sun turns to ash in the landscape of his future, and in its place rises a new sun, consuming him and spitting him back out.

Zuko wants. 

He wants and he wants and he wants.

And he cannot have.

(He will survive this. He has survived worse)

* * *

Sokka has grown broader during his time at sea; his laugh fills the rooms of the palace which had always seemed so cold despite the humidity and the red and the fire. His blue eyes pin Zuko down from a hundred yards away, but his large hands are too gentle to do the same.

Zuko watches hungrily when Sokka slips back into the stream of his life. He sits at feasts across from Zuko, legs long and face relaxed, hands moving as they bring food and drink to his full mouth, unaware that the Fire Lord watches him take his fill, unaware that now that he has returned, the young king will never be full again. Unaware of it all, Sokka moves through crowds, shaking hands with diplomats, arguing for reparations to the council with the same sort of assertive friendliness he’d known when they were children. 

They are not children anymore. 

And none wear that truth so well as Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, who comes back from the sea with tattoos of thick lines on his shoulder, one for each storm he had bested, who comes back from the sea with dark skin and white teeth and long hair that’s pulled back from a face that gives new meaning to the word  _ wonder _ .

Zuko watches. He burns.

He wants.

* * *

(He will not survive this)

* * *

Zuko trembles the first time his stomach turns at the sight of him.

They play like children sometimes, even now, and when Aang arrives with Katara, both of them laughing and young and happy without caveat, Zuko welcomes them eagerly into his court. Toph can’t be far behind, and with Iroh in his old rooms, this place feels like home.

They play like children in the courtyards, Katara and Aang taking turns sparring with the Fire Lord as attendants look on nervously. Burns are healed quickly, falls are broken by cushions of air, and steam rises in the early hours while laughter echoes around the stone walls.

Sokka holds his sword playfully to Zuko one morning, and Zuko rises to the challenge, telling himself his eyes will not wander when Sokka yields metal sharpened to dangerous points. He has mastered himself time and again and has learned to push his wants down so that all that remains is duty, honor, survival.

This changes when Zuko watches Sokka’s body move in the sunlight, the way his body twists and shifts and dodges; his mouth goes dry when he sees the sweat at Sokka’s temples, he loses all sense of hearing when laughter bursts from Sokka’s open mouth; his hands falter when Sokka’s fingers grip the hilt of his sword in a quick adjustment.

His feet trip as his body responds to the beauty of his friend, and Sokka’s next carefree swing catches Zuko in the side.

Zuko’s flat on his back as Katara begins to heal him with an efficiency that belies the intense skill sewing skin back together actually requires; it’s an unpleasant process to feel the sinews knotting back together, all too reminiscent of the day his sister fell.

But Sokka kneels next to his sister, a hand on Zuko’s forehead as he groans with apology; his head blocks out the sun, and all that’s visible above him are blue eyes filled with worry and regret and fear. 

If this is dying, Zuko thinks casually as blood spills over Katara’s careful hands, it can’t be so bad.

Sokka’s thumb trails nervously over his scarred cheekbone while his sister pulls Zuko back together. He forgets to hurt.

He can’t seem to forget how to want.

* * *

Zuko is confined to bed after the sword incident; his council attends to him there, and he hears cases brought to him from commoners who need help, cases of farms that are failing, of children who are starving.

He listens to it all throughout the morning, and Aang stays longer than he should to make sure none will hear of the Fire Lord’s injury and try to take advantage. Katara stays with Aang; Sokka stays with his sister.

At least, Zuko assumes this is the reason for Sokka remaining after his ship sails from the harbor. It can’t explain why Sokka comes to his bed in the afternoons. Why he sits in the chair next to his bed and tells him stories endlessly.

“That didn’t happen,” Zuko accuses, smiling at the canopy of his bed when Sokka pauses for dramatic effect.

“It did happen!” Sokka laughs though, a belly-laugh, his feet propped insolently on the Fire Lord’s bed. “I had to wrestle the elephant-whale all by myself.”

“I thought they were elephant-Koi, not elephant- _ whales _ .”

“There can’t be both?”

Zuko shakes his head. “No. No, I forbid it.”

“Alright, Your Majesty.” Sokka’s foot jostles Zuko’s leg playfully, and Zuko sucks in a breath at the unexpected contact.

“Shit.” Sokka’s feet thump into the carpet as he sits up, suddenly concerned. “Did I hurt you?”

_ Yes. _

“No,” Zuko whispers, face heating with an obvious lack of deniability.

_ All the time. Constantly. By existing. Don’t worry though. Not your fault. _

“Spirits.” Sokka sighs and drops his head to the mattress, shaking it back and forth. “I’m the worst.”

“Are not.”  _ I am.  _

Sokka’s brought his head down to the level of Zuko’s waist, after all. Zuko can’t ignore that. His body can’t ignore that. He really is the worst.

“First I cut you in half, then I make it worse when you’re trying to heal. I’m an oaf, just like that old fortune lady said.” Sokka rubs his neck. His next words are more painful than any sword - “Send me away already.”

“I wouldn’t.” Zuko doesn’t look away when Sokka looks up. “I would never send you away.”

Their eye contact borders on the physically tangible, and Zuko feels the heat creeping down his neck as he shifts his feet under the blanket, trying to hide it; but, his robes are open to the chest, and he knows his skin is pale enough that the blush tumbles down to his ribs.

He’s frightened by the open way Sokka’s eyes trace the tell-tale pink racing along his skin; he’s frightened that Sokka doesn’t look frightened at all. 

It’s never occurred to him that Sokka might want him, too.

But, Sokka blinks and the moment passes, and Zuko’s left with breath held for too long and a heart determined to slam its way through his ribcage.

“I should let you get some rest,” he says, his voice different somehow.

“Yeah.” Zuko adjusts himself up higher on the pillows and gives Sokka a tight smile. 

“I’ll … see you tomorrow?”

He hates that it sounds like a question.

“I won’t go anywhere,” Zuko says, hoping that it passes enough for a joke that it will reset things.

Sokka stands. He looks like he’s going to say something, but when his mouth opens, nothing comes out. Instead, he leans down, and Zuko feels his jaw quivering because -  _ he wouldn’t, would he? Won’t he? Please, please, please  _ -

He brushes his hand along Zuko’s forehead, releasing hair that Zuko hadn’t realized had been trapped to his sweaty skin; Sokka’s movements have the same economy as normal, both assured and quick, but Zuko swears that when Sokka’s fingers curl the hair back behind Zuko’s ear, his thumb strokes against his temple, lighter than a fritillary wing.

Sokka clears his throat and stands up tall. “See you.” His strides are long and powerful, and Zuko watches each of them, his stomach burning, until the door closes and Sokka’s gone.

The Fire Lord closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten, hating himself with each second. He curls his fingers into the bedspread as he wages a war against the tumult in his gut, the heat that creeps along his spine, the ghost of touch at his temple, his ear, his leg, the all-important points of his body that Sokka had touched.

When he reaches zero, the want is no less.

Zuko grits his teeth and brings his hand beneath the blanket, shoving past layers to grip himself firmly; he pushes the blanket down to his ankles and winces as his still-sore side protests when he lifts his hips from the mattress, his fingers long but not nearly blunt enough to be what he wants. He clenches his eyes shut and thinks about blue and broad and gentle and he comes with a grunt of two syllables that leaves him wrung-out and panting.

His eyes are still squeezed shut when he turns his face into a pillow and chokes out a sob. Shame is the only thing he knows, and it tastes like salt water on his tongue.

* * *

Shame is a heavy thing. He’s carried it for so long, for so much of his life.

The feeling of failing his mother when she disappeared; the loss of his crown and half his face at thirteen; the constant inability to capture the Avatar (although, now he thinks that perhaps the spirits had wanted him to realize it was futile, had wanted him to grow, had wanted him to survive for different reasons than conquering). 

Shame is as much his as the throne he sits on: his family had destroyed half the world, after all. He had hurt Katara at Ba Sing Se. He had turned his back on his uncle. He had been unable to save Azula from the curse of their dynasty.

Shame is something that spreads like a disease. 

Zuko remembers the taste of it at the back of his throat, a heated flash of lightning up his spine, when his body had responded to the sight of a young guard out of his armor. He had been twelve. The Agni Kai had happened six months later, and all desire of that sort, that kind of wanting, had vanished, burned away by his father’s hand.

Zuko had lost that shame as he focused on his goal. But he remembers it all the same. He remembers many things.

He remembers the fear in Mai’s eyes when Azula had discovered her in a compromising position with Ty Lee. They’d been children then, even with Zuko and Azula returned home from war, all of them cogs in their parents’ imperial machine, but Mai hadn’t been so young she couldn’t be afraid.

Zuko remembers holding Mai, swearing to her that he’d be with her, he’d pretend that it was real, he’d marry her if he had to - he’d never let them take her away. Ty Lee had hidden in the rafters for two days without coming down, and Mai had whispered to Zuko that she wanted Ty Lee continents away from all this, that she didn’t judge her at all for leaving her when she was so scared.

Zuko remembers waiting for them to take his best friend away, how he shivered so hard he felt his teeth crack sometimes. Two days had passed though, and nothing had happened. He remembers eyeing Azula nervously when she entered his chambers; she hadn’t even glanced at the way Zuko cradled Mai to his chest, one hand on his dao defiantly - “Where’s Ty Lee?” Azula had asked, bored, as she lifted a hand to heavy velvet curtains at the window. “We were supposed to go to the Colonies tomorrow.”

Nothing came of it, and after weeks, Mai relaxed and Ty Lee had stopped crying; Azula never brought it up to Zuko, and she certainly never brought it up to Ozai.

(Zuko still thinks it was the only time Azula had ever been kind)

* * *

As though sensing what Zuko had done that afternoon, Sokka never comes back alone. He comes with Aang or Katara, with Mai sometimes (and that’s a clash of personalities that amuses Zuko even in his anxiety), and other times with Iroh.

With Sokka so painfully out of reach, Zuko is confronted with the weight of his shame, his family’s shame, the burden of his conflicting wants. He wants to be a good Fire Lord; he’d leave his throne in a second if he thought he could make Sokka smile in the privacy of their solitude one last time.

His eyes don’t know how to leave Sokka. His hands don’t know how to stop trembling when he stands too close. His heart doesn’t know how to stop its sprint in his chest when Sokka enters a room.

Zuko becomes a conflagration when Sokka is near. He’s a beacon, an unholy torch that burns and burns and burns until he’s screaming inside his throat from it. He wants, and he wants, and he cannot have.

Despite his love of theatre, he’s never been a good actor; Zuko knows he must wear his feelings for Sokka as obviously as the scar on his face. He assumes Iroh will talk to him, will be kind in his condemnation, will urge him to find love that will not go against the laws of their country; Iroh will love him, Zuko tells himself, no matter who Zuko loves.

In the end, it isn’t Iroh who speaks to him. It’s Aang.

His friend flits down from the rooftops as Zuko meditates in the rising sun.  _ Breathe in,  _ as he thanks Agni for the new day,  _ Breath out,  _ as he releases his stress from the previous day. It comes as no surprise that Zuko is much better at breathing in than he is at breathing out.

“Hello, Aang,” he murmurs when he senses the young man at his right.

“Hi, Zuko!”

He welcomes the Avatar’s presence, smiling into the peace between them as Aang joins him in meditation. Their breaths sync quickly, and a quarter of an hour slips past without any sort of stress or anxiety. When Zuko at last opens his eyes, studying the beautiful gardens that were once his mother’s, Aang speaks.

“Zuko? Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?” 

“Do you ... know how I feel about Katara?”

Zuko shoots him an incredulous look. “Everyone knows how you feel about Katara.” He knew how the bald monk felt about Katara  _ before  _ he knew Katara’s name. He hadn’t been so lost in the quagmire of self-hatred that he’d become blind.

“Right.” Aang beams at him. “I love her. A lot!”

“That’s great, Aang.” Zuko smiles, even as his heart twists a little in jealousy. “Are you, uh, going to propose?”

“What? No! We’re still kids!” Aang laughs cheerfully, and Zuko tries to smile but fails. “Oh. Did I say something wrong?”

“No. It’s … not you.”

“What is it then?”

Zuko shrugs. “Nothing.”

Aang’s eyes grow wide. “Did they make you take an arranged marriage?”

“No. Of course not.” Zuko laughs bitterly. “I really don’t think most of the nobility are rushing to have their daughters marry a deformed, disgraced, barely redeemed traitor.”

“No one thinks of you like that, Zuko.” Aang’s voice has grown quiet in its kindness, and Zuko ignores his friend’s gaze for the time being.

“I guess.”

“Also … um. I didn’t think you … cared about what people’s … daughters think.”

“Why? Because I don’t care what anyone thinks?”

“Noooo.” Aang tests out the word slowly. “Because … Zuko, you’re gay.”

Zuko startles to his feet, the grass singing beneath his hands as he scrambles to stand. “What?” He hisses, his eyes darting around the gardens. Thankfully, no one is there. “Be careful who you say that to, Avatar.”

Aang’s more graceful as he stands, his newly long limbs bending and unfolding carefully, his hands raised. “Zuko, it really isn’t an insult.”

“Maybe not where you come from,” Zuko huffs. “But in my country-”

“In your country, Fire Lord Sozin banned same-sex relationships a hundred years ago,” Aang says gently. “I know, Zuko.”

“That law is  _ older  _ than a hundred years,” Zuko snarls. “It’s part of our-”

“Sozin altered history,” Aang says, still gentle, and Zuko looks away, steam coming out of his nose as he tries to control his terror. “Zuko, I was alive, remember? I came to the Fire Nation. My friend Kuzon had two moms-”

“You’re lying!” Zuko shouts, startling birds from their perch above them. He closes his eyes and turns his face away. “Stop it.”

“I’m not lying. I’m telling you the truth - whatever Sozin made them put in your histories, whatever he did to make that law stick … it was just propaganda, Zuko. There isn’t anything wrong with loving-”

Aang trails off.

“Loving who?” Zuko demands, his voice sharp and rusted like it was when he was a boy fighting the world. Aang doesn’t answer at first. “Loving-”

“Sokka,” Aang interrupts him, holding his hands up defensively when Zuko instinctively flinches forward. “Zuko, I’m not trying to upset you -- I’ve seen how you look at him. It’s … it’s how I look at Katara, that’s how I knew-”

Zuko snarls but then collapses like a puppet with cut strings; he crouches, hands in his hair as he shudders. “Does he-” He chokes out.

“He doesn’t know.” Aang crouches too, and gently puts a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. The Fire Lord considers shrugging him off, but thinks better of it.

“You can’t tell him.” He wants to say it as a threat, but it comes out twisted and broken. A little like him. “You can’t, Aang, promise me.”

“I won’t. I’d never - but … you should.” 

“Leave me alone,” Zuko whispers to the ground, a droplet of water sliding off the sharp slope of his nose and landing on the burnt grass.

“Zuko-”

“Leave me alone!” He roars, looking up with a ferocity to match the oldest dragons. 

Aang does not leap away to the rooftops or procure a glider for a quick escape. He stands slowly, his grey eyes locked on Zuko’s with a clarity that creeps into his soul until he feels raw and tired and so impossibly afraid. 

“There isn’t anything wrong with you,” Aang says, looking closer to a hundred than eighteen. Zuko hisses and looks away, wiping a tear from his eye with an angry brush of his hand. “The law is wrong. Not you.”

“The law is-”

“You’re the Fire Lord,” Aang reminds him. “And you hate injustice. So why would you let yourself be ruled by one?”

When Zuko looks up, Aang is gone, so no one is there to see how bitterly he weeps.

* * *

Sokka comes marching into Zuko’s chambers, unannounced, and uninvited, a week after Aang confronts Zuko.

“Hey, did you get a chance to look at the proposition I drafted?”

Zuko turns from the window, giving him a look harsh enough to melt paint. “Sokka. I don’t remember telling my guards I was expecting a visitor.”

“Oh, those guys. I told ‘em it was fine.”

Zuko glances to the open door; he feels a faint stirring of amusement at the guilty looks on his guards’ faces before they hurriedly close the doors with Sokka inside.

“So, anyway, the draft that I sent you-”

“We can discuss this tomorrow at the council meeting.” Zuko looks back to the window, staring out over Caldera as it glimmers to life in the settling of dusk. “Or we can discuss it at dinner.”

“You skipped dinner.” 

He doesn’t turn around, not even as Sokka crosses the carpet and comes to stand behind him. If Zuko closes his eyes, he swears he can feel the heat of Sokka radiating across the foot that remains between them.

“You skipped dinner every night this last week,” Sokka continues. “What gives?”

“I haven’t been hungry.”

_ Not true.  _ What is true is that his appetite for food has been ruined; his appetite for other things, however …

“Yeah, sure. Is this about the fight you had with Aang?”

Fear stiffens Zuko’s spine. He grits out, “What fight?”

“You know, he came to talk to you about something one morning, you shouted at him, he’s been feeling really guilty. That fight.”

“Did he tell you why I shouted?”

_ He promised. He swore. Avatar or not, I’ll hunt him to the ends of the earth  _ again  _ if he - _

“No, he just said he crossed a line. He feels really bad about it, and I’m guessing you do too, or you wouldn’t be hiding in here.”

“I’m not hiding.” Zuko’s voice comes out sharp enough to cut, and he can hear Sokka swallow nervously.

His mother had cringed from his father’s temper, too. The thought stifles Zuko’s anger enough where he turns around immediately. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He means it. He looks in Sokka’s blue eyes once and then away, to the wall where it’s safe. “I don’t want to be angry with you.”

“It’s okay, you’re always angry.”

Zuko flinches. 

“...and that was a joke. Ugh.” Sokka slaps himself in the forehead, and Zuko turns around completely, concerned at the frustration in his friend’s face. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” Zuko asks, mystified.

“I didn’t even write that draft! Iroh did, and I just copied it over and signed it!”

“You … plagiarized my uncle?” Zuko’s confusion intensifies.

“No! He told me to do it!” Sokka says, agitated. Zuko, distantly, is pleased to discover that Sokka’s voice still gets slightly squeaky when he’s upset, even if it has grown generally lower and huskier with maturity.

“Why in Agni’s name would my uncle ask you to plagiarize an economic treatise for him?”

“He wanted me to have an excuse to come talk to you!” Sokka hides his eyes behind his hand and groans. “And I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“I see.” Zuko folds his hands together. “My uncle’s worried about me.”

He’s been selfish, hiding in here and wallowing in his shame.

“No.” That’s surprising, and Sokka quickly adjusts his answer when Zuko looks up, shocked. “I mean. Yes. He’s worried about you. I think that guy is always worried about you, like the rest of us are.”

“All of you are worried about me?”

“Buddy, you’re the youngest Fire Lord in generations, and you’re fixing the biggest mess anyone’s ever heard of. Of course we’re worried about you.” The familiar endearment in Sokka’s voice is comforting but also hollows him out.

He should be grateful for their friendship; he will be grateful for their friendship.

“But that’s not why he sent me here.” Sokka stares out the window now, and if Zuko didn’t know any better, he’d say the confident young warrior looks … scared. “He’s … worried about me, too.”

That gets Zuko’s attention fully. “Are you ill?” He demands, sweeping forward as he examines Sokka openly, searching for a sign of suffering. He finds none apparent. “Injured? Are you … are you unhappy here?”

They’re facing each other now, less than six inches apart, and Sokka smiles weakly. “No, no, and no. At least. Not in the normal ways.”

“Normal ways?” Zuko repeats. “So it’s rare, then? What’s wrong?”

_ He’s wasted time being up here, he’s made Sokka feel unwelcome- _

“Oh, this is going to go so badly,” Sokka mutters to himself before he sighs and steps forward, hands reaching out to Zuko’s face.

He cradles Zuko’s jaw in his large hands, his blue eyes roving over Zuko’s face, scar and all, unflinchingly. 

“Remember that I’m not a bender,” Sokka says nervously. “If this doesn’t go well-”

“Sokka?” Zuko asks, his voice faint, foreign to his own ears.

Sokka smiles briefly before bringing his mouth to Zuko’s; the world is lost in a rush of white noise, and Zuko stands, frozen, as Sokka kisses him gently.

This gives Sokka the wrong impression; he pulls back, more nervous now than he was before. “Sorry.” He bites his lip, which is slightly pinker than it was before. “I-” 

He pulls away completely, leaving them to stare at each other.

“Iroh seemed to think-”

“My uncle told you to do that?” Zuko asks, still piecing all this together. 

“Not exactly.” Sokka is standing in a way that makes him look smaller, a peculiarity on such a large man. He’s larger than Zuko by quite a bit: four inches taller, broader, thicker in the waist and thigh. He’d felt so small when Sokka had held him just now.

Zuko’s throat feels like a desert. 

_ We kissed,  _ he remembers.  _ Sokka kissed me. _

“Iroh seemed to think … you’d be okay with it?” Sokka clears his throat. “I guess he’s either wrong, or I’m a lot worse at that than I remember.”

“No.” Zuko shakes his head, ingrained politeness making his mouth move even when his thoughts can’t. “You are very good at that.”

Sokka smiles. It’s humorless. “Thanks.” 

“I can’t,” Zuko says suddenly, his face heating when Sokka looks up at him. “I want to. But I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Sokka repeats, frowning. “Why not?”

“Because.” Zuko knows a thousand reasons why he can’t, but he can’t think of them at the moment.

“That’s a terrible reason,” Sokka warns, taking a step in.

Zuko laughs bitterly. “I have good ones.”

“Your honor?” Sokka challenges, and he’d sound angry if Zuko couldn’t hear the hurt in it.

“No.” Zuko shakes his head. “You … you honor me, Sokka. I-” He can’t continue, and his throat closes.

“Tell me you don’t want me, then.” Sokka sets his jaw. “Go on. I can take it. We’ll still be friends, I’ll go back to my room, and you’ll start coming to dinner again, then I’ll go back to sea and won’t see you for another two years and everything will be normal. It will be fine. Just tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Sokka scoffs. “You can’t kiss me, and you can’t tell me why. You should know me well enough by now to know that I like answers.”

“It’s…” Zuko casts about helplessly. “It’s too much.” That’s true: his brain is on overload, and his heart is beating so fast it feels like one continuous thrum.

_ We kissed,  _ he remembers again.  _ We could be kissing, if my mouth would stop talking. _

He remembers hiding Mai for two days; he remembers his father’s sneer as he called him a score of cruel names that challenged his masculinity; he remembers the executions, the imprisonments, the disappearances. He remembers.

“It’s too much,” Sokka echoes, frowning. He’s stopped pulling away, at least. 

Zuko’s hands go to his hair and tangle in the long curtain of it. “I’m …” He shakes his head.

“What’s too much?” Sokka prods. “Zuko, tell me. You can tell me anything, I’m your friend.”

He trembles before it tumbles out. “It’s shameful,” he admits brokenly. “How I feel for you, it’s shameful.”

Sokka rears back like he’s been slapped. “What?” The syllable is harsh and cleaves through the air.

“It shouldn’t happen,” Zuko continues, tearing at his scalp. “I’m - I’m unnatural, my father always - he knew, Sokka, he could  _ smell  _ it on me, he knew - my mother knew, and my grandfather, he wanted me  _ dead,  _ Sokka, he knew I couldn’t - he knew how I felt before I did-”

“Whoa.” Sokka’s hurt has coiled itself back into worry. “Whoa, Zuko, c’mon. Breathe.” He grips Zuko’s wrists and tugs his hands out of his hair, gentle but firm, the normal contradiction Zuko associates with Sokka. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko mutters, unable to meet Sokka’s eyes. “I’m - All I could ever do is hurt you.”

“How could you hurt me?”

“Because, I … I ruin everything. I’d drag you down with me, all because you’d be too kind to say otherwise.”

“Hey.” Sokka tugs on his wrist again, this time to get his attention; Zuko looks up and his breath catches over the next half-hidden sob when he sees the intensity in Sokka’s eyes. “Drag me down? Where are you dragging me?”

“I’d … even if I could … have  _ that  _ with you, it would be a mistake. You’d … you came here because you were worried about me. Because you could see that … and my uncle could see that-” Zuko blanches at the thought of Iroh knowing this about him, “you could all see that I want you.”

_ Because in my family, wanting means taking and I couldn’t bear it if I took you when you didn’t want _ \--

Zuko wrenches his hands away in revulsion at the thought. “You don’t want me,” he spits out. “You pity me because you can see that -”

Sokka blinks and then shakes his head. “I’ve slept with men,” he says firmly, and it’s Zuko’s turn to rear back. 

“What?”

“Will you throw me in jail, Fire Lord?” Sokka challenges.

“What?” Zuko repeats, his heart breaking at the implication. “Sokka, I’d never-”

“Because it’s against the law, isn’t it?” Sokka pushes, taking a step forward; Zuko takes a step back, and they move together, vicious tides under an unforgiving moon. “How I feel. What I’ve done.”

“No.” Zuko shakes his head frantically; Sokka grabs his wrist again.

“You said it yourself; it’s unnatural.”

“No!”

“I’m shameful, is that it?”

“No, Sokka, stop it!”

“You think it’s terrible that I’ve slept with men and enjoyed it as much as when it was a woman - it’s unnatural that I’d meet men with pale skin and dark hair in bars and inns and on the road and take them to bed.” Sokka looms over him. “La knows I have a type.”

Zuko goes equal parts cold and hot. “Sokka, stop it.”

“I want to hear you say it,” Sokka says calmly; he’s holding Zuko’s wrist still, but at no point has he squeezed the bone, or held too tightly. He’s just holding him, and Zuko can’t seem to pull himself away. 

“Say what?”

“Say to me what you said about yourself.”

“I can’t.” Zuko shakes his head weakly and tugs on his wrist; Sokka doesn’t let go. Zuko doesn’t really try, either. “I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because!”

“Because  _ because  _ \- you keep saying because!” Sokka half-laughs. “Tell me, then, that I’m wrong for wanting you. Send me away.”

Zuko’s heart pounds as Sokka’s words land. “You want me?” He asks dazedly. “You-”

“Do you think this is wrong?” Sokka asks, his free hand going to Zuko’s waist; he pulls him in gently, and Zuko doesn’t fight him. “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Zuko whispers but catches himself immediately. “No. At least. I don’t - I don’t care.”

“It isn’t wrong,” Sokka says firmly. “I’ve been to every corner of the world and the Fire Nation is the only place that outlaws how I feel about you.”

“Someone should change that,” Zuko says faintly, wondering if he’s going to swoon like the girl in  _ Love Amongst the Dragons.  _

“Luckily I know a guy,” Sokka murmurs, his eyes locked on Zuko’s mouth. “Tell me, though.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me you want me too,” Sokka says simply.

He was always the bravest of them all.

“I want you,” Zuko says immediately. “Fucking hells, Sokka. I’d burn this entire palace to the ground if you asked me, I’d abdicate, I’d leave forever-”

“I’m not asking for any of that,” Sokka says, and before Zuko can ask what it is he’s asking for, Sokka kisses him again. This time, he kisses back.

Lightning licks up his spine when Sokka licks into his mouth, and Zuko moans into it, his hands curling into Sokka’s chest. They’re pressed together now, Zuko leaning up on his toes as he tries to keep up. He knows he’s terrible at this, but he doesn’t care; the only person he’d ever kissed was Mai, and their kisses were performative as they both hid the truth about the other from the world.

“Tell me this is wrong,” Sokka whispers into Zuko’s half open mouth as his fingers toy with the heavy robe he wears. 

Zuko shakes his head and kisses Sokka instead, shrugging the robe off; Sokka makes a noise that’s not quite a laugh as he hauls Zuko up so his legs wrap around his waist, and carries him to bed.

“The guards,” Zuko gasps out when he hits the mattress, “Let me send them away-”

“They’ll probably know what we’re up to,” Sokka laughs, and Zuko cringes away from that idea as Sokka puts a knee on the bed. “No, sweetheart, no, they don’t, I told them I’d watch over you tonight-”

“They’re gone?” Zuko repeats fuzzily as Sokka climbs onto the bed and hovers over him. “You-”

“I’m going to protect you,” Sokka repeats, his fingers pulling his tunic open deftly. “Don’t worry.”

Zuko can’t be worried as his hands tangle in Sokka’s hair, his thumbs marveling over the texture of the shaved sides of his head; Sokka licks and nips his chest, and the fire that’s burnt low in his stomach since Sokka arrived spirals into an inferno that threatens to burn the entire bed down.

“You’re so beautiful,” Zuko says dazedly, like a confession, when Sokka kneels over him.

“Nah,” Sokka laughs as he tugs his own shirt off. “That’s my line.”

“You’re beautiful,” Zuko repeats stubbornly, sitting up to put a pale hand to Sokka’s tan stomach. “You are, and - I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sokka kisses Zuko’s forehead, kneeling back on his heels as Zuko kisses over his chest; he groans and hums as Zuko tests out different pressures. “You shouldn’t be sorry right now-”

“I shouldn’t have been ashamed,” Zuko whispers into Sokka’s skin, another confession. Sokka stops teasing him and instead, a large hand cradles the back of Zuko’s head as he holds him still, holds him steady. “I should never be ashamed of this.”

“It’s this place,” Sokka tells him gently, offering absolution he doesn’t deserve. “It’s your family, Zuko. It was illogical because you couldn’t tell  _ me  _ what you were telling yourself - I know you don’t actually believe all that, or you’d hate me, too.”

“I could never,” Zuko swears vehemently. “I could never hate you.”

“Then why hate yourself?” Sokka whispers, cupping Zuko’s cheek, his thumb moving surely over his cheekbone.

Before he has to answer that, Sokka kisses him again, and they press down to the mattress together; Zuko makes an embarrassing noise the first time Sokka’s hips roll against his, his body bucking up into the contact as the friction builds, and Sokka uncharacteristically doesn’t laugh at him. He groans instead, kissing Sokka’s neck, his large hands moving surely and confidently over his bare upper body.

“Want you,” Sokka mutters, his eyes hazy when he pulls back. “Is that okay?”

Zuko nods and helps pull his pants over his narrow hips when Sokka tugs at them; he gasps sharply when Sokka touches him experimentally

“I want to,” Zuko protests, reaching for Sokka’s waistband, and Sokka laughs and shakes his head.

“My turn, jerkbender,” he teases, and Zuko’s huff is lost with Sokka’s next movement. 

He’s lost to steady touch and waves of sensation, and when he finally convinces Sokka to let him return the favor, they move against each other, less violent tides this time, more harmony than conflict as Sokka presses increasingly messy kisses to Zuko’s lips.

It’s Sokka first, then Zuko, both of them trading moans instead of air, the room growing more humid with the heat they give off in waves. Sokka doesn’t let Zuko go when it’s over, his strong arms bracketing him and holding him so tenderly, Zuko might break in half.

He’s crying, then, and Sokka’s kissing each tear, the ones that fall on ruined and unruined skin equally, his nose brushing against his jaw and nose and forehead as he kisses him steadily.

“Can you forgive me?” Zuko hears himself whisper, and Sokka stiffens for a moment before relaxing.

“There wasn’t ever something to forgive,” he reminds him, and Zuko turns his face into Sokka’s chest and prays that this is true.

Zuko lies awake long after Sokka has fallen asleep, an arm thrown heavily over his middle, Sokka’s nose in his hair, their hands tangled together. Sokka’s heartbeat sounds steadily behind him, his body heat softer than Zuko’s, his frame larger, his spirit stronger. Zuko stares at the opposite wall and thinks of the laws he needs to pass, that he will reverse: for moments he hates himself for not changing it immediately when taking the throne; for moments he hates himself for other, more painful reasons. 

Sokka must sense his turmoil in his sleep because soft lips find Zuko’s shoulder and leave a gentle kiss as Sokka mumbles and readjusts how he’s sleeping. Zuko holds his breath as Sokka moves around him, and when the man snores again, lightly, Zuko closes his eyes tightly, letting one more tear fall.

He can’t hate himself; he can’t hate that part of himself anymore. There’s nothing left there to burn, after all. Sokka had swept it away, effortlessly, changing the world like he always does. If Sokka came here tonight, braver than anything Zuko’s ever seen, then Zuko can be strong enough to go out into the world tomorrow and change this for everyone in the Fire Nation. Everyone deserves this, he tells himself. He believes it. 

Everyone deserves their peace. Everyone deserves to feel this safe. His family had taken that away from their nation; tomorrow, he removes that shame.

“Sokka,” Zuko whispers, throat tight with unshed tears. “Sokka?”

“Mm.” Sokka shakes a little and then nuzzles into Zuko’s shoulder. “Wazit?”

“I…” Zuko trails off and then takes a sharp breath in.

_ Breathe in. Breathe out.  _

“I love you,” he says, his thumb stroking over Sokka’s scarred knuckles where their hands are clasped against his stomach.

No answer. 

“Sokka?”

There’s a gentle snore behind him, and Zuko smiles as Sokka’s body grows heavy with sleep again. 

He wants to tell him. So, he will tell him.

Tomorrow, when they change the world.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this angsty Zuko character study.
> 
> I really really want to write a happier chapter/one-shot where Zuko's overcome his self-doubt and embraced this part of his life and he can have an uncomplicated marriage to Sokka because everyone in the Fire Nation ships it (also a happy scene maybe where Iroh tells him he loves him unconditionally because of course Iroh does)
> 
> anyway, please let me know what you think/if you'd want a continuation of this !!!!!
> 
> (also at this point, this makes 1 angsty Hades/Persephone AU, 1 semi-fluff semi-angst Modern Au, and 1 angsty one-shot I've written for Zukka, oof)


End file.
